The Phillies Zone

Okay, we were just informed by Ruben Amaro via Phillies spokesman Kevin Gregg that Brett Myers has changed his story about how he hurt his eye. Myers initially informed the team that a ball hit him in the face during a game of catch with his four-year-old son.

Here's what Gregg said a few minutes ago: “What actually happened was, he slipped getting out of his car last night, hit his face and suffered significant swelling around his eye—I don’t know which eye yet, I’m trying to find out. He’s icing it today, he’s going to see our medical staff tomorrow in Clearwater...We were misinformed by Brett.”

I asked, so Brett told the Phillies two different stories?

“He told one story, and then told us this story,” Gregg said.

Amaro has so far not returned a phone message I left immediately after Gregg's update.

That’s all we know right now. There are obviously lingering questions, and I’m working on getting answers.

***

UPDATE:

The Inquirer's Jim Salisbury reached Myers by telephone, and here is the story related by the pitcher and his wife Kim:

Myers said he had arrived home from dinner last night in Jacksonville, Fla. They were in Jacksonville because Myers had the day off from rehab activities in Clearwater. He said he had two beers at dinner and rode home in the back seat of his wife's Escalade in a car filled with friends, and that the family's babysitter was driving. Myers' parents were at home with the children.

In the Escalade, the back seat is a bench-style seat, and the middle seats are separate chairs. Myers said that he tripped while passing through those middle chairs. He said his feet got tangled in children's toys. He then fell out of the Escalade and hit his face on the side of the door.

He was not cut, but his left eye was "swollen like a balloon" when he woke this morning. Late this morning, Myers said he called minor league athletic trainer Brian Cammarota and told the fanciful story about his son and the game of catch. He said he called Cammarota back about five minutes later and told him the real story becuase "I didn't feel right about that."

Soon after that, Myers received a text message from Amaro asking Myers to call the GM. They talked, and that was the end of it. The Phils refused to make Cammrota available for comment.

Asked why he made up the story about playing catch with his son, Myers said: "Because I felt like an idiot."

Kim Myers called it a "freak accident," and both she and Brett insisted that was the entire story. They conceded that, because of Myers' 2006 arrest for assaulting Kim in Boston (charges were later dropped), the current situation would raise questions.

"No, I did not hit him with a frying pan," Kim Myers said, with a laugh, while teasing her husband for being a "klutz."

I placed a call to the Jacksonville Sherrif's department to see if any incidents had been reported involving Myers in the past 24 hours, but my message has not been returned.